It’s been almost 10 months since I left dental school and am
still unemployed! I’m just keeping an optimistic outlook in life, hoping that
my name will be in the list for next intake. (Please give me a job KKM.)
In the late of March this year, Nabilah shared with us an
idea. Several of my batchmates and I later then met up over coffee to develop
that idea and the result from our discussion was a group called Projek Anggur.
After waiting and hoping on the government for so long, we thought might as well
make ourselves useful to the society.
Trivia: Why call Projek Anggur?
Answer: Because we are a group of penggangur (unemployed) and
we love eating raisins.
Our aim for Projek Anggur was actually to spread the
awareness of good oral hygiene practices among the underprivileged children in
Malaysia. We try to teach them the 4 aspect crucial to good oral hygiene
maintenance through interactive activities. So far, we funded ourselves through
private donations made by our friends and families. However, as we try to take
on new challenges in the future, donation itself won’t be sufficed. (The toothpaste and toothbrushes were so expansive
that about 90% of our funds were used to purchase them!) Although there
were hiccups along the way, I think we all are slowly maturing. We are still
new and eager to learn.
Projek Anggur 1.0
Our very first work was at a school in Selayang called
myWelfare. It was a school set up for the Rohingya refugees’ children. We took
on the challenge to handle 30 kids ranging as young as 3 years old to 12 years
old. We all found it quite difficult to convey our messages because most the
kids could not understand Malay or English! It was a real struggle and most of
the time, the kids wore blank faces. *sigh*
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| Nabilah got a helper to translate everything back into their native language. |
We prepared 7 interactive stations, among which we aim to
expose them to basic dental hygiene tools, the role of the dentist, good dietary
food choices, dental radiograph and how to brush it right. Each child was given
a ‘dental passport’ whereby they will receive a stamp once they finished the
station. Those stamps serve as a positive reinforcement and motivation for the
kids.
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| Station 1: Introduction to mouth mirror & tooth brush |
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| Station 2: Teaching the Fones Technique |
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| Station 3: Caries Excavation |
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| Station 4: Extraction |
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| The Most favourite station of ALL! |
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| Station 5: Differentiating Cariogenic and Non-cariogenic Foods |
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| Station 6: Introduction to Dental Radiographs |
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| Stimulating how an intraoral radiograph is done! |
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| Station 7: Video Animation on Tooth Brushing |
After completing the whole circuit, we gathered them around
again and made them watch the Upin and Ipin tooth brushing song. To our
surprise, the children were ecstatic with the video that we had to play it
several more times. As a result of that, most of them were chanting bulat, bulat, bulat till the time we
left the school. We ended our time
there by giving out the goodie bags we prepared; containing a toothbrush,
toothpaste and a cup. It was regretful that we didn’t manage to do the brushing
drills as we ended our activities during their lunch time. Between tooth
brushing and food, I guess food wins.
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| Presents time! |
During the interactive station, I managed to chat with an
older boy call Mohammad while waiting for the change in group rotation.
RC: Mana Mohammad tinggal sekarang?
M: Kat rumah di hujung jalan bawah sana. *pointing to a
house out the distance.
RC: Sejak bila bermula sekolah sini?
M: Beberapa minggu lalu.
RC: Baru sahaja beberapa minggu lalu? Berapa lama sudah di
Malaysia?
M: Hampir setahun
*station bell ring*
It made me wonder how his family is coping now, what have
they been doing all these while, what was their life back there in Myanmar. As
quoted from Sharmila Sekaran, “The trauma that these children gone through
affects them for the rest of their lives. They have gone through the worst of
everything. They have been taken out of their comfort zone. What was home is no
longer home. They need security. They need certainty. They need familiarity.”
Projek Anggur 2.0
The second project was held at a shelter home call Pusat
Pengajian Al-Qalam. It was situated in Puncak Alam. The area actually looked
quite deserted that morning we arrived. We had a prebriefing session in a mamak
shop nearby before we head over to the site. We were quite determined to improve
our programs and flaws from the last session. This was a shelter home for the
abused children and we tried to tailor our activities to be sensitive to their
needs.
The challenge this time was to control a group of 70+
children ranging from 5 years old to 15 years old. We divided them into 2 major
categories; >12 years old under the teenage group while <12 years old
under the kids group. As compare to Projek Anggur 1.0, we added in an ice-breaking
session, introducing them to a model dentist and a short story telling about
development of tooth decay aided with comic.
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| Meet & Greet! |
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| Abang Molar Story Telling Time |
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| Teaching the Fones Technique |
After that we broke into the groups as mentioned earlier.
The kids group participated in interactive stations similar to 1.0 while the
teenage group undergoes a counseling session. To our surprise, the teenagers
also wanted to try their hands in the interactive stations.
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| Station 1: Fones Technique |
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| Station 2: Caries Excavation |
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| Station 3: Extraction |
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| Station 4: Differentiating Cariogenic & Non-cariogenic Foods |
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| Station 5: Introduction to Dental Radiographs |
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| Teenagers learning about the Healthy Plate! |
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| Attentive listeners to Oral Hygiene Maintenance! |
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| The Completed Dental Passport! |
Despite knowing why these kids where here, I did not master
the courage to ask them about their life for fear that I might pricked into the
past that hurt them. . For most of them, home is not a place of refuge. Some
had obvious physical signs of abused, bruises on their foreheads, burn scars
all over the hands. What we don’t see is the emotional scars they hold in their
hearts, how it affected their confidence. Though many of them were curious and inquisitive,
there were some who were still shy and unsecure about their surroundings. Some
cried easily, refusing to communicate, hiding their faces away from you.
One teenager shared with me her ambition was to be a teacher
or not, a dentist. I told her to hold on to her dream and work hard for it. She
gave me an assuring nod before moving on to the next interactive station.
The kids send us home with a few rounds of their cute tepuk
(claps). Though we spend just 3 hours with them, I felt we have connected and
truly engaged with this group than the kids in Projek Anggur 1.0.
Overall, Projek Anggur has been truly an invaluable
experience for all of us. Out of 10, I would rate our awareness program at 6.
There are certainly more places that we can improve but we are quite limited by
our funding. I look forward to that day
that we can purchase a good giant model for the brushing drills or maybe invest
in a projector for presentations. Personally, I am thankful that Prof Noorliza
had exposed us various times during our UG days in organizing community oral
health programs which have serve as a useful platform for us to start this
small-scale community project. We are in the midst of planning the next project
and I hope it will be another successful one.
Stay Tuned!
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| Team Projek Anggur 1.0 |
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| Team Projek Anggur 2.0 |
Ps: We are really thankful for Klinik Pergigian Prestij
Perdana who so kindly lends us their mailing address as well as the tooth
forceps. We were also glad to get extra helping hands from friends (Arep, Blade
& Pyan) on both these projects.
